'■ <'Siirf;:i-t^ >-^t^%>^'« ^T^tft Kecoilections of iiij own Yimes, bj Chief Justice. George Shea, I ^ 'Of tke Marine CQuri, ^ ^ Of the City of Mm iDxkM 1032 to 1894. •'^^y- -^ r^s» I'--. (" ass F33^ ](iok .S53 PRKSKN'TEl) liY \^^: <-: 4VW * ::-.^^4 .^'^* .^^^ »/ ■ V >.«j.^^-. jm>. ■ :•■'•■:• •l ^^m ^^■^•••t k:'-^,^ -^■. ■ \M:-J 0.>^ PREFACE I BEGAN at my rural retreat in Brattleboro, Vermont, now eleven years ago (August 1, 1883), to indite these Recollections. Since tliat time anxious business and other cares have required all the attention my ability could exert. At last a season of comparative retirement from the actual strifes of business comes to me, offering- cause to hope that it puts it in my power to complete what I then undertook. There are many projects and events of which I alone am now able adequately to relate. It will disclose motives, objects, and careers of abiding in- terest ; and — as it has been said by those who chiefly have persuaded me to the task — will make more clear deeds upon which must rest the fame of men whose names are already esteemed of permanent historic value. They all are passed through this to the higher and eternal life.^ I shall have occasions to speak of matters of lighter, but ^ Among whom ought to be es- and the late Robert Shelton Mac- pecially mentioned Horace Greeley ; kenzie. Greeley, Seabiiry, Gill- Samuel Seabury, D. D., Vice- more, O'Conor, and Wilson were President Henry Wilson ; Lord very urgent tliat serious affairs Houghton ; William Connor Magee, with which they were connected D. D., late Lord Archbishop of should be accurately recorded by York (his father and mine were me, being most familiar with their Corkagians, and knew each other), history. I shall have much to re- Charles O'Conor, General Quincy late of tliese eminent men them- Adams Gillmore, Bayard Taylor, selves. , , t S3? .S53 still not trivial significance, wholly within my own know- ledge, the relation of which has often entertained my own immediate associates, and which may have an interest for a number of people of these and of future days ; and thus, perhaps, I may aid to preserve, in colors less fading than those of memory, incidents, anecdotes, and traditions of distinguished personages who knew me, whom I knew, and with whom I was often closely consociated in plea- sant intercourse as well as in affairs of pith and moment. These Recollections will comprehend a space of time of more than half a century, Long years ! but brief in retrospect. Bellagio, Lake of Como, Italy, September 20, 1894. 265 '07 MY RECOLLECTIONS OF MY OWN TIMES 1832-1894 I BEGAN on April 00, 1837, active and as they proved efficient efforts to support and maintain myself by my own individual labors. I was then ten years of age. On the fourth day of the previous month, while on a visit to the city of Washington with Mrs. Katherine Stevenson, my maternal aunt, I was present at the inau- guration ceremonies of President Van Buren ; and I was there not so much by curiosity to behold the occasion, or to see the incoming of the new President, as to look upon Andrew Jackson taking leave finally of public life. He had often come to the Lancastrian school,^ and was ever 1 I believe that the plan of in- struction instituted by Joseph Lan- caster is not used in this our time. Its main features were employing- the older or more efficient scholars as monitors, and a system of elaborate drill, by which those as teachers were able to instruct in the rudi- ments of reading, writing, and arith- metic a large number of the other scholars at once. The materials used were very scanty ; and, instead of pen and ink, or slate and pencil, a board was spread with sand for each child, in which he charactered the letters with his fingers. The little community was so organized that the members learned much from each other by feeling the need of common efforts to accomplish common purposes. The movements of the children were regulated by military precision, and in our school we had a company which drilled in a uniform of green bom- bazine jackets, nankeen trousers, cap trimmed with gilt lace, and long spears witli heavy tin heads. This body had a particular charm for the President, and proud we were as we sometimes filed in marching order before the Hero of New Orleans. friendly and talkative to the boys. I attended that school, and was " the monitor " of my class. The school- house was situate on the middle of the Common, which is between the Capitol Hill and the Navy Yard. As I re- collect him, he, notwithstanding the rigorous aspect which some of his portraits represent,^ appeared to us a kind- hearted man, of simple and earnest manners ; and we boys looked upon him as a welcome friend, and never thouoht of him as the hero soldier, or as the dictatorial President of whom we heard harsh accusations ; which probably none of us heard as abundantly as I did, for I was in the midst of the old Federal and the W liig coteries. Yet it was true that Jackson was a most positive man in his opinions and acts, and, while straightforward and open, too frequently indulged in passionate outbursts. My associates were among the sons of our Federo- Whigs,^ because my paternal grandfather was, and had been since his arrival in America (1812-1813,) of " the old Federalist school " of politics, and was a firm devotee to a protection of American industry, almost prohibitory of articles of foreign fabrication, especially those of Great Britain. He voted in the presidential election of 1832, as he had in that of 1828, for Henry Clay for President ; and his only son, my father, a Whig and an ardent adherent of that great leader, voted for Clay, in 1844. 1 The finest portrait, as a work of ^ The Whigs were not formally art, of Jackson — and probably the organized a party till the spring of best presentment of him in his prime 1834, and then by an union of those — is that by Jarvis, the eminent who condemned the policy and acts American painter. It represents of the administration, — especially him in the uniform of a major-gen- the removal of deposits of public eral. Another represents him in his treasure by General Jackson, — most latter time, and throughout just as of whom were previously known as I have seen him. It is a profile, supporters of Adams and Clay, and These portraits are in the Manhat- advocates of " the American Sys- tan Club, New York, and the last tem." named was donated by Charles O'Conor. There were pleasant relations of acquaintanceship be- tween Mr. Clay and my father, which began in 1836- 1837, while he was a writer and reporter on the " Intel- ligencer " (the national organ of the Whig party), pub- lished by Gales & Seaton at Washington. My father and his family, then recently arrived from West Point, were living in Philadelphia during the autumn of 1832 : the Clay and Jackson election contest was at its fever height. We, in these our latter and comparatively placid times, can have no notion of the partisan envy, hatred, and malice of those times, running into all relations of social, business, and even religious life. We, children at school, were, to the verge of our physical ability, contentious and quarrelsome with one another on the subject, — probably not less senselessly than our fathers, — and more than once was I beaten and bruised by fellow-scholars for my advocacy of Clay. Our respective parties gathered each day after school-hours about the " Liberty Pole " (Clay) and the " Hickory Pole " (Jacksonian),i and those were the centrifugal spots from which we sallied forth for the strifes. I was thus from almost childhood within the arena of party contentions, and was especially in the atmospheres of the Federalist doctrines ; wherefore it came about in latter years (1835-1837) I was near to the centres where were engendered those enmities and opinions of parties which, though of remote origin, ^ were now more belligerent than before, and were developing an immense popular uprising against the Van Buren- Jackson "• dynasty," which had for years seemed invin- 1 The Clay|3ole was our familiar tions. . . . The first year (1821) of tall flagstaff, with the liberty cap Mr. Monroe's second term had at its head ; the Jackson, a tall scarcely passed away before the hickory-tree, with its branches political atmosphere became in- trimmed close to the toj). flamed to an unprecedented extent.' - " Jefferson and Madison were — Van Buren's Political Parties. brought forward by caucus nomina- eible. And just as Jackson was leaving office, the great crises of 1836-1837 were already imminent. Van Buren succeeded to assume the burthen of the ensuing business calamities — and great they were.^ Jackson retired with a degree of personal popularity greater than ever : greater than at any time during his presidential term, and his po- litical day closed with the radiance of a glorious autumn. Van Buren from the outset had to enter into an arena from which the sunlight had gone, and about which clouds and ominous conjectures were gathering. The industrial, commercial, and financial resources and energies of the country were checked, and before the spring of 1837 came they were throughout the land, to all seeming, hope- lessly cast down. My first view of the city of Washington was at the dawn of day on Christmas, 1835. We left Baltimore the previous night in the regular mail-coach, and greatly did I rejoice in our four horses as we dashed along. I was in the ecstasies of a novel excitement, and if I slept, it must have been towards morning. I have in memory, with the distinctness of a boy's vivacious mental vision, the inci- dents of the route. On coming near to Bladensburgh a snowstorm was setting in, and our coach, reaching Washing- ton, toiled into the centre of the city through a heavy fall of snow. I heard at the time, and have always understood, that that was thelast mail-coach driven between those cities — for the next day the railway line was opened to Bladens- burgh, and from there for a short time the coaches for- 1 As I had behulfl Van Buren in pageant from an upper window as it his incoming, so I chanced to behold passed along Cliatham Street. The him in retiring, on his way to Kin- respectful and public receptions of derhook. He was received at New our distinguished men were with York in an impressive manner and one accord and were notable events conducted in an open carriage in those days. Now — none so poor through the cliief streets by a mul- to do them reverence, titudinous procession. I saw the warded tlie passengei'S and mails into Washington, till the railway was completed to the Capitol. My fancy was eager that night — perhaps nothing passed me unnoticed : the stopping o£ the coach at the roadside taverns, to change horses ; dropping and taking in passengers ; the calls and shouting of the stable-men, and the glancing of the lights of lanterns as the horses, harnesses, and coach were examined ; the smith's forge casting forth flames ; the face of the blacksmith radiant in their rays ; the sparks flying in sparkling showers around the anvil as the iron was beaten ; and the horses standing in the shop ready to be shod. A warm repast of food, and we were soon all aboard again ; and the new-comers opened new themes for conversation. The horses " were given their heads," we were once more on the road ; the notes of the guard's bugle startled the silence of the dark and chill night as we went onwards. Many were the stops we made near farmhouses to leave out or take in passengers ; and each such change evoked a renewal of lively conver- sations with the latest comers. Political subjects, often very heated, superseded all others. Our fii-st stop after leaving Baltimore was at the Relay House, at the bridge near the river. There were also outside-jiassengers, not- withstanding the inclemency of the weather; there the smokers perched tliemselves, and, buried in their heavy furs, looked to my imagination as a coterie of convivial bears. Some of those scenes, though I saw them then in reality for the first time, had a familiar aspect. 1 have since thought that I must have seen engravings of Wou- verman's roadside hostelries, with the taverns, forges, and horses of his storied landscapes : those would have had sufficient suggestivness for my young fancy. As we came by Bladensburgh we heard of riots there among the rail- way operatives, and great was the fear of some of our people. But we saw nothing of riot or rioters. I note 8 the incident, for it was there I first heard the phrase, " Corkonians and Fardowners," — a phrase since grown into wide repute with ns. In Washington our home was a little way outside the city proper, on the road to Georgetown, near the Bridge. The houses in that neighborhood stood in large gardens and orcliards, or were farms. Yet there were good fam- ilies enough there and near by to make a community of choice people. John Quincy Adams lived near by, and well I recollect his gronnds abundantly covered with apri- cots and freestone peaches, in which I as well as other lads took a free and stealthy delight. But onr own chief intimacies were with the Hon. John L. O'Sidlivan, and Samuel Langtree,^ and their families, and our evenings were often spent together. Mr. Adams and my fathei', being near neighbors and of the same political party, and each of a literary turn, were on more than mere speak- ing acquaintanceship. I remember some of the notables of that time in Washington : there was the Reverend Dr. Kyder, the famous president of Georgetown College, who was a frequent caller at our^house. He was a very intimate associate of Mr. Clay, and one of the greatest pulpit orators, conversationalists, and controversialists of tlie age. There was Lewis Cass, sitting in front of liis residence, his custom of a summer afternoon, always ready for a talk. I liked to wander in that direction, and have the " General " notice and call me to him. Then there were the two daughters of General Van Ness, beauties and grande demoiselles, one of whom became Lady Gore Onsley, wife of the British ambassador ; the other the wife of the Hon. James I. Roosevelt, a ' They were the editors and pro- oldest editor in the United States, prietors of the Georgetown Metro- In late years he and I were close polita7i. Mr. O'Snllivan was after- friends and associates in literary and wards owr charg-4 to Portugal, and social circles, at the time of his death (18i)o) the judge of the New York Supreme Coui-t. The former I never saw after leaving Washington, but Mrs. Roose- velt honored me with hospitable attentions, and I have been at her receptions in her mansion on Broadway, in New York. Others equally attractive, of Washington society, I knew, but in later days ; and of whom I may speak. While we were living at this place, near the George- town bridge, a man named Whelan attended to the gar- den. He was a native of Ireland ; came from near Car- rickfergus;^ and was a violent Jacksonian Democrat — limited, and for some cause, and probably no reason, roused, and not seldom, by a hatred of Van Buren, then the Vice-President. Maybe because he regarded him a sort of Dauphin, waiting for Jackson's place. But it is of his brother " Larry " that I have to speak. He was a frequent Sunday visitor to his brother, our gardener. This Larry was a stone-cutter, working at this time, and I believe for many years after, on what was known as "the New Treasury Building." He bore a most re- markable and notable resemblance to Jackson, and both the brothers prided themselves greatly on it. The Presi- dent frequently passing where Larry was at work, seldom neglected, it was said, the opportunity to give him a kindly recognition. Malicious and jocose tongues would suggest that there was possibly a consanguineous relation- ship between them ; but the malice lost its venom and the joke its point, for the two were nearly of an age. Now, on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue, just oppo- site this Treasury Building, then in course of erection, was a small public-lioiise where nothing but Mononga- hela whiskey was sold. At noon for an hour the me- ^ The parents of Jackson were a remarkable town, and one of the natives of Carrickfergus, a town in famous antiquities of Europe, tlie north of Ireland, near Belfast, 10 chanics and laborers assembled there ; bringing their dinners with them, and having a glass of the liquor. The whiskey was drawn direct from the keg into large pitchers, and tlms the customers were served. They were good- tempered, and I cannot recollect any case of intoxication among them. I was tempted to the place, and was often there during that hour on Saturdays, when there was no school, to hear them tell stories and sing songs. There I first heard " The Shan Van Voch," " The Wearing of the Green," the "Rollicking, Roaring Irishman,"^ and "The Cruiskeen Lawn," and though in later years I have heard those songs sung by the famous Tyrone Power, by Sam- uel Lover himself, and by Mossop and Collins, I think that I have never heard them given with more genu- ine humor and true meaning than when voiced by the stone-cutters and laborers of the Treasury. There were sweet tenor voices among them ; and Moore's melodies were familiar favorites. These jovial associates carried Larry into a bit of disrespectful fun, which, in the autumn of 1836, nearly brought to a close the distin- guishing courtesy by which the President noticed him. He yielded to the mischief-making desire of the others, prompted, as was afterwards suspected, by the brilliant and ill-fated George Drumgoole, the member from Vir- ginia. The costume usually worn out of doors by the President was somewhat peculiar and well known. Larry was accounted to be a counterfeit presentment. A white beaver hat, heavily in bands of mourning ; spectacles, weighty in gold rims, on his nose ; long-skirted overcoat reaching to the ankles ; and a thick black cane with large ivory knob, completed a deceptive attire. And forth 1 Charles O'Conor, tlu; distin- some of these songs ; of whom I guished advocate, — wlio honored shall anon have much to say. me for thirty years with friendship - lie fought a duel ; killed his and intimacy, — was very fond of opponent ; and for some years sur- vived his usefulness and happiness. 11 down Pennsylvania Avenue went the verisimilitude of the presidential personage, tall, erect, and with martial gait. He was offered salutes here and there in abundance as he strode on ; and he knew how to acknowledge them in ap- propriate form. Some intimates outside the innuediate conspirators had been let into a preknowledge of what was to be done, and those enjoyed it, but from a prudent distance. Greatly was the gleeful expectation arising to meet Larry on the return up the avenue ; when, within a couple of streets of the Capitol grounds, near the tem- porary railway shed, the President himself, just in from a visit out of town, turned into the avenue, and the " two Dromios " came face to face. It is not necessary to describe further than to say that the pleasing hope of lookers-on was not to be gratified for a sc^ne in which Larry would be pul)licly caned — an expectation not un- reasonable from Jackson's reputation for prompt discipline. The President quietly approached Larry, and what was said by him was heard by none but themselves. Larry's hurried and furtive efforts to rid himself of his uneasy garments caused the only merriment. The President without delay had a hack called, and Larry, placing him- self in it, humiliated and sad, for the first and probably the last time in his life went home in his own carriage. . General Jackson was partial to at least one more native of his fatherland. This was Martin Ranahan, famous among the local celebrities of the time. He was what is called " a character ; " and he and Larry were indeed jyvivileged characters. Martin was the chief hall-porter at the White House, and had been, I think, in that office from the beginning of President Jackson's first term. He was nursing an ancient, ardent, and vindictive hostility towards all '' Whigs and Whiggery ; " and this passion he actually sought occasions to declare and inflict. The occasions which came oftenest were when visitors, 12 even the Wliig- senators, called ; and many a time and oft were his incivility and annoyances complained of to the President personally. These instances of disrespect grew more and more nnmerons, and at length Martin was brouo-ht to face the multitude of accusations. The President sent for him to come to his private chambers* where his Excellency earnestly upbraided the unappeas- able Martin. "Yer Excellencer^," suggested the culprit, " those are only what o?rr enemies, the dastardly Whigs, say ; and if I don't mean to be too civil it is just to their likes." The President told him that callers, whether Whigs or any others, on public business had the right to be respectfully received and presented ; and added, " Martin, your conduct has become intolerable. We must part." Martin assumed the attitude of jiatient sufferance, and said : " Well ! well ! yer Excellences, if it is your wish I suppose it has to be ; but, sir, a word in season. I go along the avenue, and into the halls of the hotels, and I hear those same senators and the likes, talk about yer Excellencee, too ; and I tell ye that if I believed only a little of all they say of you, I would n't stay in this White House another day." The President succeeded in subduing his mirth long enough to have Martin depart the chambers, and to say to him : "1 sup- pose it is so, Ranahan, — perhaps you are as well abused as myself." His " Excellencee " would relate this inci- dent with great gusto to the accusing senators and others ; and whether Ranahan amended his manners, or the callers began to tolerate him, it is certain that he became a more famous " Martin," and very popular ; so much so that he remained the hall-porter to the end of the Jackson administration ; was retained by President Van Buren, and by President Harrison. When General Harrison, as the successor of Van Buren, came to the hall of entrance under the portico of the White House, March, 1841, 13 Martin, who was well known to him, was there to do the duties of his office. " Welcome, yer Excellencee, to yer own hoouse. All is ready for you ; I am now the only martin in the nest." " Remain here, Martin, and help to keep it warm for me." And remain he did, growing in favor and fame, till John Tyler, the Vice President, suc- ceeding to the presidency on the death of Harrison, April 4, 1841, siipcrseded the old porter by appointing one of the rising mob of political applicants.^ They were now a body of mingling, persistent gangs, for an invasion of Tylerite democracy was pushing aside or cooperating with the former host which Horace Greeley had spoken of as " coon minstrels and cider-suckers." As I have said, I was at the inauguration of President Van Buren (March 4, 1837). That morning the out- going and the incoming President rode together in an open carriage, made, it was currently rumored, from tim- ber of the frioate Constitution. I watched from the western terrace of the Capitol the procession as it moved from the White House down the avenue, and wild and loud were the salutations of the masses of the people along the route. My father was connected with the press ; and, as he had till lately reported for the newspaper with which he was connected (the "Washington Intelligencer,") I had often gone upon the floor of the Senate to see him, and often to get from him " the copy " to bring to the editorial room ; and so, at the time of the inaugu- ration I was known to members of the Senate, and, bet- ter for my purpose, to most of the clerks and attendants of that chamber ; wherefore I easily passed on in the 1 The date, however, at which under Van Buren, and, indeed, while the organization of the uses of po- he was Vice President. The Jackson litical patronage for party purposes, administration had two coteries in it corrupting the civic service, was in- from its earliest start : one was Van troduced into national offices was Buren's, the other Calhoun's. 14 gathering of distinguished officials and other personages, usual on such events, to the temporary platform erected over the steps of the eastern portico ; and there, standing near the chair where Jackson, now a private citizen sat, I heard, but probably did not heed, President Van Buren pronounce the inaugural address. That day began to body forth a memorable era for our country. In its conceptions were already the stimulants to those contentions which found no end till the war for the Union of the Republic determined an enduring na- tionality. The device called the caucus — said to be peculiar to us — had then its permanent establishment in political uses, and its baneful influences were already usurping the healthful operation of free and intelligent party adherency. The winter of 1836-1837 saw business generally beginning to fall into the distress which was one of the severest which we ever have suffered. Banks were becoming weak, and the weaker began to break. There was a small bank on the avenue, near to Fourteenth Street, close to where Willard's Hotel has since stood. One morning its doors remained closed. A crowd of its depositors, among whom were negroes, gathered about it, and increased soon to a great number. They tried to force the entrance open. Well do I recollect the frantic actions of what was at last a mob. The president of the bank nor any of its officers could be found ; but the president's body was found the next morning. He was in dread of being "lynched," and had drowned him- self in the canal. The indefinite and foreboding hoiTor by which this scene and circumstance affected my mind and imagination has never been effaced nor diminished. I then first heard of a bank breaking, of lynching, of suicide ; and first saw a tumultuous crowd of thoughtless people made savage by anger and a desire for revenge. I have in later years heard of and seen many such out- 15 breaks and crimes, and more portentous ; ^ but this first impression remains unmixed with others, and ever excites in me a fresh feeling of repulsion. The month after the inauguration the common crash came ; and the financial, industrial, and commercial centres of the business of the country had to yield wholly to the forces of adversity. At this time (1893-1894) in the presence of the depressed state of business, especially of our industrial fabrication, and of the wide and deep financial derangement, it is meet to recall to our thought the causes and the occasions of former like events. Those of 1836-1837 were — it must be admitted — quite peculiar ; but their warning example is nevertheless of pregnant value. Their history is this : that from the claims paid to us by a number of European nations on account of spoliations committed by them under the Con- tinental system of Napoleon, there remained belonging to the government of the United States itself a balance of about 135,000,000 ; and this sum the government had 1 I was a beholder of the Astor and bore a dangerous though Place riot, hi which the partisans of only general likeness to Horace Edwin Forrest and those of AVilliam Greeley. Venturing out to see Macready, the rival actors, thought how matters were, he was set it feasible to fix the merits and pre- vipon by ruffians ; and struck by eminence of one or the other. I some heavy instrument, his skull saw hoiTible phases, also, of the was fractured. The celebrated Draft Riots in ISOo. The latter surgeon, Lewis A. Sayre, — from were most pregnant in immediate himself I have the story, — was danger at that very time to the na- instantly called in, and lifting tional cause ; more than even the the portions of the skull which armed hosts of the Confederation pressed upon the brain, the poor converging upon the borders of our man regained his mind. Sayre's neighboring State of Pennsylvania, indignation was violent at the bru- I must relate one incident. There tal and reckless act. But the old lived in West 29th Street, between man did not join him in this view. 8th and 0th avenues, an old and "Oh, doctor," said he, "the boys respected citizen known as "Pop." meant it all right. They took me He was an innocent and hearty for Horace Greeley " ! and he was devotee of the Democratic party, wholly sincere and reconciled. 16 placed In eli^hty banks on deposit. The banks in time were regarding and using it in their trade of loans on credit ; and regarding further the sum in the nature of permanent loans to themselves by the government. The Bank of the United States had been abolished. So, at last a time came for withdrawing suddenly these dejjosits. Jackson was and had been urgent to create a currency to be composed mainly of specie ; and it was to that end that he had required the payments from those foreign nations to be paid in specie, and to be transmitted, as far as convenient, in specie to this country. Congress now directed the f35,000,000 to be distributed among the States, and it was to make this distribution that the government called in those deposits from the banks, and so as to meet with specie the drafts in favor of the States. This unexpected call, together with the breaks in the overstrained credits between us and Europe, and the ruinous decline in the cotton-market, were of the causes and occasions which precipitated the calamity upon us. In the early winter of 1836-1837, my father had returned to Baltimore. He had to accept work wherever he could find employment ; but he was induced to go there, I think, by his old West Point friend, Edgar Allan Poe. A new weeldy was starting or reviving, called the " Monument," and he was required to assist as literary editor. This was one of Poe's seasons of utter poverty,^ much owing to the hard times, but more to his own failings. The paper was of course unsuccessful ; it lacked money support and proper business manage- ment. After remaining in that city till the spring of 1838, my father went to Philadelphia, and there engaged in the literary department of the " Saturday Courier," 1 Poe is one whom I reserve to speak of at length in a further part of these Recollections. 17 with his friend Joseph R. Chandler, and sometimes wrote for Godey's " Lady's Book " and the " Southern Liter- ary Messenger." Our stay in Philadelphia had incidents for me which are worth mentioning ; but our removal to Baltimore produced a jiositivg directing influence upon my own course of life. My aunt and I returned home soon after the inauguration. Attendance at daily school had become a weary toil : I learned more and better from my father's brief examinations of an evening than from the day's plodding in the close schoolroom ; and the restlessness begotten by the excitements of Washing- ton indisposed me for further attendance on mere routine studies. Besides, I began to perceive that it might be convenient, probably Avould be necessary, for me to do something towards my own support. My first impulse was to go back to Washington and procure the place of a page in either house of Congress. I was, as I have men- tioned, known to some of the Senators, and was likewise to Representatives ; so the impulse was not wholly vain nor unpromising. But, late of an afternoon, as I was in a day-dream, loitering along St. Paul Street, coming to the corner of the lane leading down to the Court House, I saw seated on the '•'• stoop," in front of his office, William Gwinn, the editor and proprietor of the " Bal- timore Gazette." He was friendly to our family, and knew me. He spoke to me ; and as we talked, it suddenly occurred to me that I should like to be a com- positor, — the name by which type-setters are called. He seemed amused at the earnestness with which I made the request, and said I was too young to think of anything but school. Young as I was in years, I was younger in appearance : for my years I was truly small in size and seemed very delicate in health. I reminded him of the hard times, and that it might soon be needed that I find means for my own maintenance. I also told him that I 18 could no longer abide the imprisonment of the school- room, and how little good it was doing- me. He was an indulgent, amiable gentleman ; and perhaps only to please what might have been a boy's fleeting fancy, told me to come to him the following Monday morning. ^ I was early that morning in calling on Mr. Gwinn ; he took me to the composition-room, and gave me in charge of the foreman ; a small, stout keg — once a depository of nails — was after a long search procured, and on that I took my stand at " the case." Jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled uj), I began to learn the rudiments of the art of printing, and to begin the world in earnest. I had already picked up, while running about newspaper-offices, some slight knowledge of types, and the way in which they should be set in the compositor's " stick." This came to my assistance ; but I first, and instantly, wished to be familiar with " the boxes " in the " cases," and, noticing that the boxes were of different sizes, I at once taught mj'Self that the sizes were four in number, and each of a capacity suitable to the greater or less use of each letter; thus, the largest box was for the "lower- case " ey the «, c, d, /?, 711, », o, 7", .s, ^, and ?/, were each ^ The first newspaper-office I gaberhmzie," in the "Antiquary," recollect being in was that of a novel which I had recently read. " Niles' Register," situate in Light I do not recollect that General Street, Baltimore. I went there Green and I saw each other again with my father in the spring of till the morning of September 7, 1835, who had an appointment to IS.JU, when we met — and I made meet th ere General Duff Green. I myself known to him — on board was so deeply imjiressed with the the Cunard liner America, at Eos- general's pei'sonality that it has ton harbor, bound for England : I never faded in my memory. His going for recreation, he on a mission very tall .ind slender figure, his of great national importance — to dress that of a South-western which we shall recur. Our ancient frontier pioneer, and the long staff accpiaintanceship on my father's of a sapling tree which he bore, account quickly became a confiden- recalled to my imagery Scott's de- tial intimacy, scrijjtion of Edie Ochiltree, " the I 19 of like size ; the 6,/', g, v, vj, and y, of lesser, but each alike ; and the i, j, k, q, and ;f, the smallest boxes, and likewise uniform. The punctuation marks were also in these smallest boxes ; and the capital letters were in " the upper case," in boxes of the same smallest capacity. Thus informed by my own observation, I was before the close of that Monday master of the types ; and on Tuesday morning I began to " set up " some " pi," that is, types which have fallen into mingled confusion ; and then, on following days, I " distributed " those types, that is, dropped them into their appropriate boxes in the cases. Before the end of the week I was " setting uj) matter " from the clippings from the " exchanges," and I saw my work ajJi^earing in the columns of the " Gazette." I have, since then, often read of the feeling of pride which young authors have in seeing their first efforts in print ; yet I doubt if any ever felt a truer and finer delight than I did when I saw my own mechanical labors in the columns of our newspaper. I was not conscious that I was doing anything worthy of attention till a month or more after this beginning, when casual visitors at the office were shown in to see me at work. I was then setting up from manuscript-copy, and this required me often to do the punctuation ; and if punctuation correctly is to be done, it requires that the compositor knows what the author means. Writers, even the best, also occasionally write for the newspaper-press, who are proverbially with- out the ability to properly punctuate. I think it an inju- rious kindness to place a boy's merits on such exhibition, especially if he is doing well. It elates him undidy — at least, that was an effect on me. The first week ended memorably for me ; for on Satur- day evening, as I was leaving the office, I was recalled by the cashier, who handed to me three of the brightest half- dollars I have ever beheld. I have seldom been more 20 embarrassed. I knew how great the favor that I was there at all ; and I asked permission to decline taking the money. Mr. Gwinn had gone home, I was told. I was again and again assured that my work was useful, and that the money was not a gratuity. I believe this was as proud an occasion for me as any in my life ; and I have had occasions when I should be pardoned for feeling the glow of pride. I went quickly and directly home ; gave my mother the three half-dollars ; and to my aston- ished, and by no means jjleased parents, revealed that I had not been that week at school, but was " a printer's devil." They were not readily reconciled, particularly my father, who had ambitious notions for my future. I think he had a hope that in the fullness of time I might receive an appointment for a cadetship at West Point ; and, also, Hon. John L. O'Sullivan and his friend Commodore ^ Matthew C. Perry were regarding me as a probable candidate for the Navy School at Annapolis. That Saturday was, nevertheless, for me a gala night : I had my first sight of the interior of a circus. The com- pany was Cook's famous English troupe ; and the panto- mime on the stage — in the Front Street Theatre — was Cinderella ; an establishment, with its magnificent array of horses, soon afterwards destroyed there by fire. I was present at the conflagration, and the sight gave me a long heartache. What might have resulted from my father's unwilling- ness was never to occur, as inexorable circumstances early settled the question for us all : the next Saturday all were paid their wages in paper money. The banks had at length suspended specie payment, and the currency known as " shin-plasters " was afloat upon the country. ^ Then commander. After the tweeu these gentlemen on this sub- time of my father's death I found ject. That of O'Sullivan's I still among his papers letters written he^ have. 21 I was soon, with the world all before me, to make my way ; and, from the first, with a care of othei's, — a care bnrthensome at times, still ever a ballast that kept me often steady and in a safe course. During this historical panic and crises, retrenchment of course was imperative in all things, and then there came the unexpected need that we all should be profitably employed, and that my father should again seek new employment elsewhere ; and so he left Baltimore late in the spring of 1838 and went to Philadelphia, where we joined him that autumn ; but he, meeting with only further discouragement, pro- ceeded to New York in the summer of 1839, where he renewed his old friendship with Horace Greeley, who was now editing and publishing the " Politician's Register " and the " Weekly New Yorker." The " Log Cabin " was to come* into existence the next year (1810), and the year following the " Tribune " to be " founded by Horace Greeley," and to begin its grand course the year succeed- ing.i In Mr. Greeley's service he continued till his death, August 15, 1845. While I was at the " Baltimore Gazette," the old Franklin and Adams press ^ was still used. The days for the wonderful Hoe's press was not to be for years to come. The " dabber " was still sometimes used to ink the form of type ; but soon the mechanical roller, and then with it the mechanical distributer of the ink, came. These were worked on alternate days by the other two ap- prentices and myself ; we on one side of the press and the pressman ojiposite, with his left shoulder towards the ^ See page . from the press. I was during- this '^ The first number was published period doing- some work — setting in April, 1841. I was pi-esent that music, then printed from movable early Saturday morning in the base- type — for Mr. Winchester, whose ment of 29 Ann Street, New York, printing- office was in the same when O'Rourke, the pressman, bviilding. turned the first copy of the Tribune 22 tyiupan. Limited as the number of subscribers were, about two hundred and fifty as I recollect, it was all of two hours before the papers could be struck off, folded, and we boys prepared to deliver them. This was the custom in serving- subscribers, and looked on as no menial labor. We frequently entered at our own will into the residences, and on cold days were warmed by coffee and buns, and at the Christmas season gorged to the uttermost with niceties of domestic cookery. The present organized fa- cilities, indeed the need of them, for printing, folding, and service of newspapers were not even conceived. The chief exciting incident of the afternoon was the arrival of the " Express ; " which brought the latest news into town by ponies with saddle-bags, and ridden by post- boys. These boys were wonders of, and envied by, the town-boys. The horns were sounded as the ponies came on at fullest speed, on reaching the main or Baltimore Street, and as the little animals always were foaming at flank and mouth — a device to indicate a length of road and fierce sj^eed — it was a popular belief among the lads of the town that the ride was unbroken from city to city. The news was generally meagre, and a few lines sufficed, and appeared in the newspapers under a wood-cut repre- senting the pony at highest speed, saddle bags, and the postboy ; he blowing a horn from which the legend issued, " By Latest Express." I was at the " Gazette " office a year and more when — my father then gone to Philadelphia — I was persuaded by the Hon. Z. Collins Lee, an old friend of our family, to turn my back on printing, and enter what he called " a great opening " in a wholesale dry goods establishment, and become a wealthy merchant. He told me that I was " a born salesman," and that my " manners were per- suasive." I read the Life of William Roscoe, the Liver- pool merchant, and the biographer of Lorenzo the Mag- LQfC 23 nlficent and of Leo X., and I dilated with an appropriate emotion. I do not recollect who brought the work to my attention : perhaps Mr. Lee, who was a literary gour- met. The time of my probation was not sufficient to bring any such imputed ability into an approved perfec- tion ; for at the end of the month 1 was told that I was " too d — n genteel " for my place ; that I did little but read books and " wash my hands." It " was just like me," ^ for it was true I always had a book in hand during any cessation, however short, of actual business : and that I washed my hands too often in my new occu})ation was perhaps true. The latter infirmity was a sad habit ac- quired from the printer's art, where after handling type the hands are always soiled ; and the proneness to reading was ever a disposition as prevalent with me as if it arose from an original sin. So I and the uncongenialities of shop-keeping " in detail and in gross " parted, suddenly and determinately, never to meet again. I wished to be back again in the compositors' room, but I was too proud to ask to be taken back into the " Gazette " office. As my father was in Philadelphia, I looked to resume such labors there ; and I soon bade adieu to " the Monumental City." There are two, I hope noteworthy, instances, of that period which I desire to record. One is of the Literary Club, which met in the hall of the Medical College in Holiday Street, next door to the theatre. The club had among its members the best and most learned and bril- liant citizens of the town. I recollect of them the Hon. ^ When Horace Greeley was go- and expressed a curiosity to learn ing by the diligence over the Briinig- why. " Perhaps you washed your Pass in Switzerland, dinner was, as face and hands after dinner. Three customary, taken at the hotel at sous is the eliarge," suggested a fel- Sarnum. He discovered, when they low tourist. " Well ! " said Greeley, were again en route, that he had " that would bejust like me." paid three sous more than the others ; 24 John P. Kennedy, author of " Horse-Shoe Robinson ; " Hon. Z. Collins Lee, Hon. William M. Meredith, and Edgar Allan Poe. They were habitual attendants. There was, also, a person afterwards well known in New York, named Michael Walsh; he had native abilities but little education or instruction, and was a naturally gifted speaker. He was after his removal to New York — probably was at the time I speak of — a remarkably good lithographer, and he was later famous as " Mike Walsh," and as the editor of a local political journal called " The Subterraneum." His end was in accord with the irregularities and excesses of his life. The interest, however, which drew me to the Medical College was, that over a high brick wall which divided its yaixl from a side of the college, the stage of the theatre could be seen, and there were opportunities in warm weather to look in upon the stage through the wings and see the performances ; and thus, unobserved, I first saw the play of "Richard the Third," — John R. Scott played the title part ; the famous Ravels ; and, in " the spectacular drama" of Gulliver in Lilliput, the dwarf " General " Stevens, Mary Gannon, and Porter, " the Kentucky Giant." That way I heard, also Miss Shereff, Wilson, and Brough sing the opera of " La Sonnambula." About this time was the memorable inundation caused by the great freshet, which, breaking the dam at Jones' Falls, came down the stream that passes through the lower parts of the city, sweeping away entirely the stone bridges over Gay Street and two of the large buildings adjoining. The principal l)ridge at Baltimore Street was an almost imjiassable wreck. I was there early the follow- ing morning, and the stream was yet most turbulent, and bearing dead cattle, pai*ts of farm buildings, fence i-ails, and the like, rapidly in its course. Baltimore in its finest parts is situate on a high plateau, and on one side rapidly slopes down to the streets near to the banks of the Jones' 25 Falls stream. In this lower district all the damage was done. Many who slept on first floors of residences were drowned, and one of the pitifidest sights I saw were the bodies of the Lutheran German pastor, and of his wife and child, lying on the bed where death came to them. Among the notabilities who came occasionally to Bal- timore was Joseph Bonaparte, the elder brother of Na- poleon I., and the former king of Spain. In October, 1859, I saw in Paris, as he was coming out the main en- trance to the court of the Palais Royal, Jerome Bona- parte, the ancient king of Westphalia. He married and was the rightful husband of Elizabeth Paterson, of Balti- more : her successor was one of the movables arranged in compliance with dynastic policies. Her father was an Irishman, and a prosperous merchant and banker of Bal- timore. I suppose that the ex-king saw that my compan- ions and myself were Americans ; for he delayed a moment and lifted his hat with a sort of ceremony probably meant to be more emphatic than usual. Thus I have seen the eldest and the youngest brother of the first emperor. How near our own times are to those great events and to the prominent figures who seem as if to lie in the far, deep historic distance. With this opening chapter I proceed to relate that which I myself recollect, and that which I have learned from others about my family and about myself. I cannot be absolutely certain as to the accuracy of what I have been told about my ancestral or collateral kinsfolk ; but I should be sure, from the trustworthy nature of my infor- mation, that that which I am to relate is nearer the truth than such traditions often are. ^-* .. .. ..:..> r ^- ,-: •>« ■^ I* , ., i • '^M.. .^V.- x: '>--"':>iM. V .« ..•.^^'•» ) LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 011 782 918 2 Sr^ ' t ii ■ >,>'.-